Guacamole

There are so many ways to make guacamole. Personally, I am really picky about mine - I like it pretty simple.

Ingredients:
ripe avocados (when softly squeezed they must give only slightly)
tomatoes
lime juice
something to give it a little "heat" (a jalapeno finely chopped or I use hot sauce)
garlic (fresh chopped or powder)
salt

Cut avocados in half lengthwise, discard pits and peel skin from each half. Mash avocados in bowl. Squeeze lime juice all over. Chop tomatoes and mix with avocados. Add your jalapeno or hot sauce/salsa. Add garlic and salt. Mix everything together. Refrigerate. Eat until you feel sick to your stomach!

*Honestly, I could not say how much of each ingredient to put in. When I make it, I usually use five avocados and two tomatoes. Then I add a little bit of all of the remaining ingredients and then taste it. Then I usually add more of everything. This goes on until I think it tastes perfect. Of course, by then most of it is gone! Other ingredients that could be used are cilantro or onions. I personally do not like cilantro at all, and I could never imagine onions in mine, so I do not use those.

Guacamole Salad - ala Ina Garten

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) made a guacamole salad. I wanted to expand upon that because she didn't make guacamole...as is, she made it into a salad, which I thought was genius. She took all the components of guacamole and mixed them together, only without all the mashing and such. Here is the recipe.

Guacamole Salad © Barefoot Contessa
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and 1/2-inch diced
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup small diced red onion
2 tablespoons minced jalapeno peppers, seeded (2 peppers)
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes)
1/4 cup good olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 ripe Hass avocados, seeded, peeled, and 1/2-inch diced

Place the tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeno peppers, and lime zest in a large bowl. Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper and pour over the vegetables. Toss well.
Just before you're ready to serve the salad, fold the avocados into the salad. Check the seasoning and serve at room temperature.

I don't like bell peppers, and I would probably skip the salt and pepper, but since not everyone shares my tastes, I decided to just copy/paste the whole recipe. It looks so good, especially with the black beans, which I imagine you can subsitute any kind of bean. I think what I would do is forget most of the measuring and just throw evetything together to taste. It reminded me of another very similiar side salad that my mom makes.

Mix cut up avocado, tomatoes red onions in bowl. Stir in olive oil and balsamic. That's it. It's delicious.

So instead of doing the guacamole salad, I made a single sized portion of the above because we had cherry tomatoes, half an avocado and somoe red onion already cut up. Okay done, sorry I feel like I am hogging this website.

A Flight of Soups

So my mom asked if I wanted to make soup for dinner, and I had this brillant idea to make a flight of soups instead of just one. We always freeze our leftover soup in single servings in a round tupperware so we can take them to work. Soup is my favorite food to make. Probably because it's so easy and all goes in one spot, but also because I'm a sucker for anything that starts out "saute chopped onions, garlic and celery in olive oil or butter."

but I digress.

The following soups are from top to bottom, left to right: Pea soup (with chives on it) Black Bean soup (with jalapeno cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream), White Bean soup, and Pureed Chickpea soup. (Do I see a pattern here ? I love beans...) My favorite is definitely a tie between the White Bean and the Black Bean. (ha!!) My dad doesn't like beans, so we made the pea soup for him, but I did not particuarly care for it. The chickpea soup was sort of like eating hummus , but runny...sorry that sounds gross, it's not bad, if you like hummus..a lot. I'll take a poll: which recipe do you want me to post: I don't feel like typing them all up right now, but if requested, I certainly will!

The best thing about these soups, ladies..(and gents..if any read this) is they all took like lesss than 15 m ins each to make and have very few ingredients and similar seasonings. Super convenient for quick meals.

So you may be asking what you would eat with these soups for dinner? Aside from salad, the usual side in our house, INSTEAD, we made sweet potato biscuits (yum with honey!) Also my mom sliced up avocado and drizzled some balsamic vinagrette on them, that was SO good!! Or you could go the traditional route and get all Italian and buy French bread. Whatever you prefer. So let me know which soup recipes you want me to post and I'll do so!

Tip for Avocado Lovers

I learned a great tip the other day; I tried it this afternoon and have decided to share the success.

Is anyone else annoyed when avocados quickly turn an unsightly brown color!? Fret no more. If you have half of an avocado left over (rare, but possible. :)) keep the seed in and put in plastic, removing all the air around the avocado, then refrigerate. I couldn't believe it when it worked! Supposedly, if you have leftover guacamole (again, rare, but possible) or if you've made it for a party and you don't want it to turn brown before serving, you can do the same thing-- put the seed in the bowl, cover, and refrigerate. I haven't tried that, so I won't vouch for it. But that's my tip.

My dinner tonight was a salad of fresh lettuce, avocado, grape tomatoes, feta cheese, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Mm, mm!